Passes & Canyons Blog

Monday was National Ride Your Motorcycle to Work Day, so I did. I try to help promote this thing every year but it has been a long time since I’ve had an actual job to ride to. I do now, so I did.

You’ve probably already noticed the photo of my Kawasaki Concours laying on its side. Oh, yeah–that.

So I got to work expecting to see a whole bunch of bikes in the parking lot. Normally there are quite a few guys who ride pretty much every day when the weather permits. I was pretty surprised to get there and find the only other bike in this one of two motorcycle parking areas was that Honda Ruckus off to the right there. Didn’t ever get down to see who was parked in the second area.

OK, no big deal. I got off and set the bike on the side stand with that yellow disc under it so it wouldn’t sink into the asphalt. But with the slope of the lot my bike was sitting up too straight, worrying me that a good stiff wind could blow it over. It has happened before. No problem, I’ll just rock it up onto the center stand.

I have no explanation for what ensued. I’ve rocked that bike onto the center stand hundreds if not thousands of time. But the first time I tried it I couldn’t get it up. So I tried again. But something was wrong and instead of rocking it onto the stand, it just tipped over. Man, do I hate it when that happens!

Right at that moment there was no one around to ask for assistance so I took a whack at it myself. But a Concours is pretty darn heavy. I was getting nowhere when a guy I don’t know but had seen around the building came along and offered to help. We quickly got it back up. No damage.

He told me he rides a Vulcan but I was too distracted to pay much attention to anything else he told me about the bike. Next time I see him I’ll thank him again and ask.

So OK, it was no big deal but it sure was annoying. Plus, I’ve never had to pick that bike up all by myself. I’ve done that with my Honda but this bike is heavier. I’m not sure I could have. I sure wasn’t having any success before this other guy came along. Maybe the brain fart that was in effect that made me drop the bike was still in effect as I tried to lift it.

At least I rode to work on Ride to Work Day. Where were the rest of you guys?

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Going two-wheel on Ride to Work Day

Biker Quote for Today

An adventure is only an inconvenience rightly considered. An inconvenience is only an adventure wrongly considered. — G. K. Chesterton.

Tags: ride to work day

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 20th, 2013 at 11:31 am and is filed under Kawasaki. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.